Filed under: Buick

Now that General Motors has decreed that Buick will be one of its four core brands, its lineup will need to be fleshed out a bit. The Lucerne is going away momentarily and the mid-size Regal is on the way. However, that still leaves only three models, including the LaCrosse and Enclave. Earlier this year, GM took us on tour of the Buick design studio and showed off a six-vehicle lineup for Buick, with a new compact sedan as the entry point. That sedan is essentially just the Opel Astra with a Buick grille and a trunk and we’ve seen it running before with heavy camouflage.

It appears that Buick has now decided to peel that back and leave just the vinyl triangles for the remaining testing. That probably means the new “Excelle” (as the previous model was known in China) will be hitting the streets sooner rather than later. Buick officials told us this car would be coming to North America. Since it rides on the same Delta II platform as the Cruze and Volt, it could be built in any number of plants, including Lordstown, Ohio and Detroit Hamtramck. Perhaps the most likely location would be the Orion, Michigan plant that is also building the new Aveo. At the time GM announced that the Aveo would be built in Orion, they stated also stated the plant would be able to build a C-Segment automobile. If that is the case, we’ll probably see the Buick launch sometime in 2011 as a 2012 model.

[Source: WorldCarFans]

Spy Shots: Buick “Astra” spotted running bra-less originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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